A Sabbath Day's Journey

Last week's writing should have said that the most obvious holiday by far is New Year's Day. Almost anyone who reads could recognize something special with the pattern 1/1/2017. Even the most ardent atheist must acknowledge that something special is going on when he or she switches calendars and comes into a new year.The text which is given with this special day is thankfully one that is strongly connected to Jesus and not to us. The eighth day after Jesus’ birth is the day of his circumcision, and it is described in Luke 2:21.Certainly Jesus’ mother and father (meaning Joseph) could have said something like, “This child is special. Let’s not circumcise him.” Certainly his heavenly Father could have stopped the whole thing right before Jesus’ blood was shed.We could easily fast forward a few years and say very much the same thing. He didn’t need John’s baptism for repentant sinners. He didn’t need the cross for criminals. He didn’t need anything that connected him in any way to anything sinful. WE needed those things, desperately.Thankfully that is exactly what comes to us in texts like this. He did it FOR US and IN OUR PLACE.